Final Fantasy XIV Gets More Microsoft-Branded Artwork, New UI Screenshot

People have been speculating all over the place about the co-marketing partnership between Square Enix and Microsoft that has been going on for a while to promote Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn and Internet Explorer 10, and today it brought another piece of artwork by Lead Character Designer Akihiko Yoshida.

This time the focus is on a Elzen Black Mage in her usual and slightly creepy pointy-hatted artifact gear.

If you’d like to put your own touch on the text art in the works you just have to follow the instructions in my previous post. Today the theme is “What’s your favorite Final Fantasy quote?”

In addition to the artwork, today we also got a new screenshot that shows a couple interesting elements of the UI, like the Contents Finder (Final Fantasy XIV‘s version of the cross-server Dungeon Finder that appeared in other MMORPGs) and a new feature named Armoury Chest, that apparently helps switching gear sets quickly without having to mess too much with the inventory. You can see it below.

In the meanwhile, I’m quite sure that the speculation on the partnership with Microsoft will continue. While I personally doubt there’s anything related to the new Xbox (as many theorize) behind it, you never know. I’d be quite happy to be proven wrong.

After all Square Enix just announced that the game will be present in full swing at E3, so we might be in for some surprises.